IDW Transformers #4 Cover B by Sara Pitre-Durocher Revealed

Following this morning’s March solicitations, the cover reveals for IDW Publishing’s upcoming Transformers reboot keep coming. The book’s co-editor Tom Waltz has tweeted Cover B for April’s Transformers #4, which readers of the previous IDW continuity may recognize as being drawn by veteran artist Sara Pitre-Durocher! The artwork features Optimus Prime walking the streets of Cybertron as Megatron, Windblade, Prowl and other characters look on, and can be given a closer look following the break. After that, you can also leave a comment on the TFW2005 boards!

There's a rumored Leader-class Optimus Prime coming for this line, except we weren't shown any CAD renders yet. Now there's the IDW reboot coming and tied to the toyline and every drawing of their Optimus is done with a body shaped like the WFC Siege Ultra Magnus except for the torso being heavily inspired by the front of the Galaxy Convoy alt mode. It looks like the artists were given a design for an Optimus figure that looks like a partial retool of the Siege UM inner robot. WFC:S UM is a Voyager figure with an armor up gimmick coming in the Leader class slot.

So it's a theory for now that the upcoming Leader class Optimus might be an armor up retool of the UM toy.

Except Starscream's bot mode really didn't change all that much in the transition either, he just carries a tetrajet on his back now.

People said the same thing when we saw PotP Starscream and he turned into Elita-1 rather than any of the other Seekers or Coneheads.

Which is still only 1 other use of that mold. For WFC it's a bit different. The others are known for being tetra jets like that. POTP was a different emphasis because of Orion Pax in the line and how Ariel became Elita-1 from that same War Dawn episode that Orion's design was used from.

Or Slipstream and Windblade are two different paint schemes for the same Starscream mold.

That might be too many uses of the same mold. It's already got 3-5 mandatory repaints between the trio, acid storm and maybe Nova Storm. And that's not counting cone heads if they are able to tweak the head. Usually 4 is the max retools/repaints unless it can't be helped. Hasbro doesn't want to be known as the company that sells you the same exact mold too many times.

That would be nice. Having the gimmick characters have their gimmick without turning them into an event. And since there’s organics on Cybertron, they could go either way with *masters (organic or robotic).

Exactly, for example Pretenders have shells. It's a thing that happened, let's move on with the plot.

I just want characters who have a gimmick to have it and not make a big deal of it, sick of each gimmick being a "game changer" plus I want to see the traditional Headmaster relationship/bond revisited.

That would be nice. Having the gimmick characters have their gimmick without turning them into an event. And since there’s organics on Cybertron, they could go either way with *masters (organic or robotic).

At least in his non-armored form. While it is very GF Convoy truck cab like, it's not GF Convoy's bot mode, because in his bot mode, the cab went to the shoulders, while it had more optics type shapes for the torso windows instead. Similar to Armada Prime's cybertronian mode, and Fire convoy's torso shape.

They are probably also leaning on that one because it's more full truck with trailer, and looks more alien truck cab in the torso than the voyager design does.

I think that the armored mode will look more like Galaxy Convoy without having anything of its transformation scheme. So the cab is needed for the alt mode, but it'll be covered with armor anyway in the bigger bot mode.

Agreed. While the last run having all that technology being slowly invented or discovered was unique and cool at the time, it would feel a little lazy to do thag again here. Once again, change it up a little.

I just want characters who have a gimmick to have it and not make a big deal of it, sick of each gimmick being a "game changer" plus I want to see the traditional Headmaster relationship/bond revisited.

Hope Micromasters, titan Masters, combiners, DuoCons and all other subspecies are commonplace so we can just have them from the get-go.

Agreed. While the last run having all that technology being slowly invented or discovered was unique and cool at the time, it would feel a little lazy to do thag again here. Once again, change it up a little.